Speaking Up

Preface

“For middle management, our quarterly board meetings are terrifying events. Every three months this hallway is lined with people in black suits with their presentations clutched in their hands and panic in their eyes,” said our tour guide at the Atlanta, Georgia world headquarters of the Coca-Cola Company. She added, “The tension is so high, I stay away from here on those days.”

If you are in middle management, you live with daily ambiguity, lack of control, and even chaos. To get anything done, you must present your ideas to people up the chain, and those presentations can be brutal. Careers and projects can come unwound in a matter of minutes if the presenter doesn’t know the rules at the top level. Your people depend on you being successful ...